Boosters Pledge Cash for Titans : Fullerton: Two men say they’ll donate $25,000 each if football program is saved. Athletic foundation has promises for $100,000.

Two Cal State Fullerton boosters each pledged $25,000 Tuesday night to help save the Titan football team, even though no official fund-raising campaign has been launched.

Jerry Goodwin, a long-time booster who owns a car dealership in Fullerton, and Kevin Forth, a five-year booster who is president of a beer distributing plant in Orange, each promised to donate $25,000 if the program is retained.

According to Goodwin, the Titan Athletic Foundation has received a total of about $100,000 in football pledges--roughly 20% of the $500,000-$650,000 needed to be raised by July to save the program. Milton A. Gordon, university president, is considering a recommendation by the athletics council to drop football because of state funding problems. Gordon, who hopes to make his decision within a week or so, fielded questions and opinions from about 35 TAF members who tried to persuade him to keep the sport.

“I’m glad we had the opportunity to provide some input tonight,” Forth said. “Division I football is important to the community and the TAF. The challenge is now for us to provide the resources to retain Division I football at Cal State Fullerton.”

Gordon stressed that “if we’re going to have Division I-A football, the community is going to have to step forward and pay for it. That’s the way it’s done in a lot of other communities.”

Gordon also emphasized that fund-raising efforts for football must augment on-going TAF fund drives, not take their place. The TAF generated about $450,000 in last year’s annual fund-raising campaign.

“There was significant community support voiced tonight,” Fullerton Athletic Director Ed Carroll said. “I’m very pleased with what we heard. There has been support issued for launching a (fund-raising) campaign, and it’s up to Dr. Gordon to make that decision.”

TAF Director Walt Bowman said the school might also expedite a plan it was saving for the 1992 opening of the on-campus sports complex, in which donations are tied to season tickets for football games. The organization hopes to sell 1,000 prime-location tickets for $1,000 each, thus raising $1 million.

“People are responding to a crisis,” Bowman said. “They see this (the threat to drop football) is real, and they’re coming out of the woodwork. The community has a chance to say, ‘We want football, what can we do?’ ”